The Hills Are Alive

I am continually surprised by the power of music. Out of nowhere it can cripple you, elevate you, punch you in the face, sooth your silks or move you to the next cloud.

The inaugural concert "We Are One" was rough. I can't believe HBO has shown it about 97 times in 2 days (they must have a bundle invested in that program). Could somebody please tell Bono to keep his "arse" off our monument, mention to half of the performing "artists" that loud doesn't make it better, and please, everyone, take off your ridiculous sunglasses. I would like to see the cartoon cash register signs go ka-ching along with the insincerity in your bloodshot self important orbs. Way to grab onto someone's coat-tails to promote and ennoble yourself! The music was mediocre and uninspiring.

American Idol. This is the result of the protected, righteous, self esteem driven upbringing of today's "everyone's a winner" child. The more tears I see on their tiny whiney faces of indignation and rejection, the more I appreciate the truth. Everyone does not win. Everyone does not have talent. Everyone is not deserving. I love the tears and the screams of agony when they are excused and tossed aside. Makes the show enjoyable to me. Losers EVERY week, right up to the last show. Delightful.

Give me a child singing something that makes them laugh, a practitioner of sorrow, the sparkles of love, a tender moment of strings and an underbelly of emotion, triumph and defeat, joy and adulation, and of course something that hits me on the one.

I am continually surprised by the power of music. Out of nowhere it can cripple you, elevate you, punch you in the face, sooth your silks or move you to the next cloud.

Video Teleconference Call

I'm guessing someone out there might appreciate a slice of my day in our beloved government as the "powers that be" embrace technology and show off their wares, highlighting proficiency of newly acquired skill sets and expertise in the field of communication.

Four photographers were assigned to travel to four different locations here in Texas to photograph a video teleconference call between the four different offices; Austin, Beaumont, Houston and Galveston. This conference call was to begin at 1pm and go on until 3pm. Photos taken of the event were to be downloaded, color corrected, captioned and uploaded to D.C. by 4pm eastern time. (That translates to 3pm Texas time.)




Of course I was shaking my head as usual. If you wanted to document the VTC, all you had to do is select record. The point of a VTC is that you don't have to travel to other locations wasting time and resources, the data and images go instead of you, for you, electronically.

So you have four guys driving hundreds of miles to take photos of images, already being broadcast, that will have to be downloaded onto laptops and emailed, as well as copied to a disk to "fed-ex" overnight to D.C. as a back-up of the images you just took of people sitting around a table watching themselves on TV. Unless of course you were at my assigned station in Galveston.

They had some trouble turning on the Polycom this morning and couldn't connect to any of the other offices (five hours early) and decided the solution was to drive to Houston to join the VTC being conducted there, and of course not informing me of the change.

I have multiple emails stressing the importance of how I had to be there to photograph this event and get the pics up to headquarters pronto. I had to research where the call was being made since that info was not provided to me. I did not have a contact name or phone number to call or any way to contact anyone by any conventional method. They were all on the road driving to Houston.

No info, big demands, no tools to do the job, everything immediately.

When they finally do look at the photos from my end of things, I will be the one fired. Almost smack down time.

Bird Mystery

I've been watching birds and wondering. This guy stands on that light post for hours everyday. I watch. Other birds fly around and try to land. He opposes them and they go. Birds want to land but are not allowed. Could be multiple birds attempting to join and this one guy manages to shoo them away.

I look at these birds and they are all the same size. If they were to switch places or share the spot, I couldn't tell them apart from each other easily. They are all very similar, but yet one dictates what's what. Why do the other birds back off? They are the same size. They have the same beak. The same claws. The same stick legs. The same bird brain.

Since the physical is the same, what is the determining factor that sets one bird above another? I don't think they go through any martial arts training, no birds are hiding any weapons in their feathers, and certainly one bird does not lift weights while another sweats to the oldies with Richard Simmons. Is it just attitude? Can one bird give a scarier stink eye than another? Is one bird a certified bad boy and another just a bird without a badge? How is rank and superiority decided?

I can't figure it out. It's a bird mystery!

3 Five Dollar Tiki Tookies

Hot night at the beach. Getting late and sleepy. Hungry too. I decide to eat first, sleep next. Maybe about 4 blocks away is a drive thru Wendy's open until 1 am. I'm mobile and hungry. Off I go and get my #2 plain, size large, with Coca Cola.

Back at the hotel with my bag of food and drink, I wait for the elevator to take me to my suite along with 3 other guests waiting to get upstairs. It is the slowest elevator ever. I could walk the 8 flights of stairs instead of waiting, but did I mention I was tired and that I was carrying my bag of food and drink?

The 3 other guests have just spent quite a few hours at the Tiki Bar. An especially active few hours considering their smell and motor function skills. The girl next to me says something smells good. I say, "I get that all of the time!" Mister funny man.

One of the two other guys jumps in, "Yeah man, you smell great. So does your food. Where did you get it?" Of course my bag from WENDY'S has little WENDY'S picture all over it and a great big red WENDY'S printed on at least two sides of the WENDY'S bag. The cup is also adorned in a similar WENDY'S way. Knowing this crew was inebriated, I decide to have some fun and told them I got it delivered from Pizza Hut.

Elevator arrives and opens the doors.

The girl says, "I wish we got delivery, I'm starving. I'll give you $5 for it." I smirk and question the fact that she wants to give me five bucks for a meal I just paid $8 for, plus tip! The talking guy takes a stab to snag my bag and says, "I'll buy it!" Of course he misses, way too slow, and I taunt him a little by waving the bag at him giving him the ah ah ah!

Doors finally close and we are on our way.

I now declare, "Since all of you are hungry, why don't you each give me $5 and you can share it."

"Dude! You got a deal!" The happy three are now laughing and high-fiving each other because of their score. They give me the loot and the elevator stops at their floor. They exit, thanking me for grub while still laughing and doing a little dancing down the hall.

Elevator door closes.

I now have $15 dollars in the same hand the bag of food is in. Satisfying!

Race Car Molly & Jolly Ollie

"What do you mean I can't park here? Jerk-head!"








Race Car Molly and her husband Jolly Ollie went to the Tiki Bar at my hotel for a cool beverage or two. Molly parked her car on the side street behind a Hummer. The street was perpendicular to the ocean across a 5 lane avenue. When the owner of the Hummer came out to leave, some tipsy tootilers pointed out that the red car was up against his bumper. Hummer man proclaimed that "It's a Hummer!", shrugged his shoulders and drove off.

When he drove away there was nothing to prevent the red car from rolling on. It did so across the 5 lanes of traffic, over some parking curbs, the pedestrian pavement and over the concrete sea wall. No one was in the car. No one crashed into as it traveled un-womaned. No one was struck by the vehicle. No one was on the beach. No one was injured.

They might have been Race Car Molly's jeans he was wearing, but those are really Jolly Ollie's legs. No trick photography.

Sandless Beach

Oh those wacky kids of Galveston Island. They need a sign to say no swimming on a beach without sand, submerged in rough waters with rows of jagged, mostly covered rocks of certain slippery death. Kind of like the coffee cups of McDonald's stating the contents are hot. I bet if they could they would suspend signs at 1000 feet in the air saying don't jump from here or above.

Still Cleaning

A few more pics I've come across while freeing up some space on my laptop.





I think animals are wonderful models. No agendas. They are what they are.